Process vs. Outcome Stories | Stories With Traction Podcast

 

SHOW NOTES:

SUMMARY: In this episode, Orly Zeewy and Matt Zaun talk about ideal clients, an empathy map, and process vs. outcome stories.

ORLY ZEEWY BIO: Orly is the Founder of Zeewy Brands, where she helps make the fuzzy clear and shows people how to cut through the noise.

For more info on Orly:
LinkedIn
Website

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

Today we're going to talk about clarifying your why and telling a compelling brand story.

Today I am joined by Orle Ziwi. She is the founder of Ziwi Brands and she helps make the fuzzy clear and shows people how to cut through the noise.

Welcome to the stories of Traction Podcast, Orle.

 

Orly Zeewy

Thank you so much for having me, It's a pleasure.

 

Matt Zaun

I appreciate your time and I appreciate the topics that you speak on. So I want to dive right in to the clarifying your why point.

So there's a lot of people listening that they think they know they're why. So if you were to ask them, why do you do X, Y, Z?

They would have a response. But what would you tell someone from a parameter perspective on why's? when it goes deeper into the why.

So when someone responds, hey, here's my why. Is there something beneath the surface that they might want to point to to make sure that the why that they are pursuing is truly their why?

 

Orly Zeewy

So first of all, let me back up here for a second. In terms of when I talk about the why, I'm not talking really about your why.

People don't really care about why you do what you do, right? That's your personal why that's great. What I look for is why do people work with you?

What are they getting from the work that you do? How do you transform someone's business? in terms of messaging, how do people connect with you so they understand quickly, this is something that's of interest to me?

Or I may know somebody who can't actually use this. So it doesn't always have to be sales oriented. I think people have a tendency to think that every conversation

is a sale. And so, and I, you know, I talk a lot about elevator pitches because an elevator pitch often and very quickly I might add sort of dissolves into a sales pitch.

Like here's what we do, here's how we do it, we're so great, here are some of the clients we've worked with, you know, that's not of interest.

And I think the other piece is give me something that in 15 seconds, I understand what you do. In terms of, again, how it serves me.

So when I talk about I make fuzzy clear, you know, that's a great entry point because typically I'll get one or two responses either like, you know, just kind of goes right over, you know, people don't really respond to it or they'll say, wow, I could try to do that for years.

How do you do that, right? So what you want is you want to make people curious. I think what we forget is that we're still talking to another person.

And as human, be curious. And so when you try to tell me everything in 15 seconds and believe me, I've seen people try to do that.

It shuts people down and that's not, that's really not what you want to do.

 

Matt Zaun

So how would you recommend people focus their why on others? Because a lot of people focus on, you know, the power of why when it comes to themselves diving deep or asking those layers.

So from someone transitioning from trying to figure out more and more their why, how would they position the wire towards someone else?

 

Orly Zeewy

So the first place, so I, you know, my whole process really breaks down into two parts. The first part is who am I?

And by that I mean, you know, who am I as a brand? know, what is it that, what's my core value?

What's the thing that really, like my zone of genius for the lack of a better term? The second half, which is the piece that really connects to the why, is who needs it.

And that's the ideal client. And by that, and to better understand, that you need to also start with what's keeping that person up at night.

What's a problem that I can help solve? How do I show them that I get what's going on in the world?

So as an example, you know, I may start by saying, you know, we're being a message at the rate on average of 12,000 messages a day that translates to more than 4 million a year.

You've got six seconds to make a go-no-go decision on your homepage. What do you do? Right? So when I, and I think a homepage is a great place to sort of demonstrate this because I land on somebody's homepage and they're already trying to sell me something.

Sign up for this, do this, do that. What I want to know is you get my problem and that's, that builds the trust-like factor.

You get my problem. If you get my problem, I assume you know how to do it. So you don't have to tell me how you do it.

need to help me understand that this is something that you get. that you have a solution for it and then leave the clicking, you know, the engagement to your visitor, let them, you know, make it easy for them to get answers.

But the first piece, and this is why, you know, where I begin with the whole identifying your why, is start with either question, a data point, something that kind of connects with your ideal audience.

And by the way, if somebody doesn't get that, that's okay too, because you're not trying to talk to everyone.

This is, I think, the other mistake people make. And this is why they fall back on their personal why, because that they understand.

And I often find that people are concerned that they're going to leave somebody out. And I have actually found the opposite to be true, that the more targeted you are, the more likely you are to attract more of those people who need what you offer.

 

Matt Zaun

What are your thoughts on connecting our personal why's with someone else's why and really make sure, make sure

 

Orly Zeewy

Ensuring that it's a good match. What are your thoughts on that? So I work with a lot of social entrepreneurs and the core value is very important to them and so they look for clients who are aligned with their value.

And a great example of that is Patagonia. You know, they are like such a great example of having really clarified who they are.

You know, they're a climate activist. They're a product company. sell products and yet the way they engage with their people, their visitors online is not by showing a bunch of shirts and shoes and what have you with prices.

They show people their ideal customers engaging in extreme sports wearing their products. And that goes to the kind of show me, don't tell me perspective, which is if you want people to understand what you do put it in perspective.

 

Matt Zaun

You know, it's interesting to me, and I do want to start from the beginning regarding the why personally, because there's a lot of people that I end up working with that they don't even know their true why.

So the challenge is how in the world can they unpack the why of others? So when someone, you know, you mentioned that example of activism, right, and tapping deeper and kind of promoting that, showing that.

So where would someone, before someone really breaks down the why of a client, how can they internalize as, whether it's a leadership team or maybe their sales rep, so their marketing department, how would you coach them to really dive deeper into the why that they have from a corporate value perspective?

 

Orly Zeewy

A great question, Matt. I think that what tends to happen is people tend to get overwhelmed because they think, oh, this is too big, this is too much, you know, and really, I think, you know, and it actually starts with,

You mentioned corporations, right? So corporations tend to have a wall filled with core values, which I always find so interesting, because the truth of the matter is there's only one core value.

It's the one thing you would do, even if it was illegal to do it. The other things are just how you do business.

mean, customer service, I always find that really funny that that's the core. Shouldn't that be everyone's core value? mean, if you are not good at customer service, you're not going to have a lot of customers.

And yet, it's somebody like Nordstroms who takes that to the core value level, where they've empowered every single employee with a certain amount of money that they can give back to customers.

 

Matt Zaun 

No questions asked. Yeah, I really like you mentioned that just how people do business. know, one of the things that I'm really big on, that I share with my audiences, is do not focus on company core values.

It's a complete and utter waste of your time. At least the words of the value. Focus on company core stories.

that exemplify the values you say you have, right? Because often leaders will say, put the customer first. What does that mean?

Because that leader, that picture they have of putting the customer first might not be the same picture that their team member has.

So they need to paint the picture through storytelling. And it's amazing. A lot of these values are the same, right?

We want to be known of someone that has integrity and character and service. And a lot of them are very much the same.

So how do we really break through that noise? Something you do very well is we need to focus on the stories that really connect to that value.

So I appreciate you mentioning that. So let's say someone does dive deep. They really truly understand to the core of why they're doing what they're doing.

What are some exercises or some prompts that they can really make sure that they're dialed into their ideal client?

Because I know there are people listening, thinking to themselves, thinking to themselves, I know who my client is. Why do I really need to process that more?

it's amazing that They might not truly know who their client is and they might be focusing on the wrong prospects which is going to lead to a lot of time being wasted.

 

Orly Zeewy

So how would you have someone to process their ideal client before they can get to that why? So again really good question and so I have I have kind of a mini empathy map exercise that I do.

You don't need to do an avatar you don't need to like I mean you know people get crazy with like I mean yes you could spend months figuring out the site person what they eat and what they read and all but really what you want to know is what is the thing that is keeping them up at night but more importantly what do they gain from working with you.

So you have to think in terms of a gain and a loss. So when I work with ex-company we're saving time because your systems help me you know for talking

talking about software or some kind of IT, IT aspect of my business, you can come in and very quickly help me deal with whatever's going on.

And actually, you know, it's interesting. I'm going to give you an example, because I actually had a client in the IT space.

And they were very specific that they, you know, for that again, very much about storytelling, right? And what we identified after doing series of exercises was that what they do is they help leaders succeed and manage through change, because change is inevitable.

know, it's constant, especially in the world of IT, you know, so, so it's not about the product, it's about helping you manage the change.

So something like that, right, where that really helps you, you know, helps you stand out, because we're not just selling, and it's a

consulting firm. right. So we're not consulting consulting. We're selling a way for you to to manage through change in a successful way.

 

Matt Zaun 

I love that. And I don't want people to miss this because this is something in the last few months that I really struggled with.

And here's and I've been doing this for quite some time. will up quite a bit of time when it comes to the story piece.

But where I was messing up was I was focused on a pain point people would have months down the road, not an immediate pain point.

And I recognize once I recognize that my my first offering needed to really focus on solving that immediate pain point, that is one thing skyrocketed once I put that in place.

 

Orly Zeewy

And then there's other services regarding the future pain points. But I really appreciate you mentioning, did you call it an empathy map?

Yes, I love that.

 

Matt Zaun 

I love that verbiage, the empathy map. So what's that good?

 

Orly Zeewy

No, it's good. Sorry to interrupt. the thing about the empathy map is it's very it's very very intentional because in order for you to understand someone's pain, you have to be able to walk into their environment.

So you take a look at what they, what, what is their day look like? What do they see? What do they hear?

What did they read? know, which platforms are they on? And that's the other piece, you know, I mean, we could talk about social media and that could be its own conversation.

But the idea is, you know, you're not on every single platform, hopefully not because you will lose your mind.

But you are really wanting to understand what is, you know, what is happening in their world. And again, you can just do a microcosm.

You don't have to spend, you know, six months figuring this out. But you know, and a lot of times I will also say to somebody, you know, if you don't have an ideal client in mind, create an amalgamom, you know, amalgam of your ideal client.

You know, why are they an ideal client? Right? Because ultimately, like I said, everyone is not your ideal client.

 

Matt Zaun 

No, it's a really good point. So once someone goes through this exercise and they figure that out, so now, now,

They have their ideal client. They really clarified the why. Where does the story brand come in? What recommendations would you make on certain stories to be sharing and other stories that should not be shared?

Where would you point them to go regarding that?

 

Orly Zeewy

So, you know, so the stories in my mind, you know, I always think say that you can break things down into process or outcome, right?

So you can spend all your time in storytelling around the process or you can talk about what the outcome is.

And again, I'll give you another example from a past client who was an orthodontist. And just in terms of their messaging, I mean, you know, and I know we're not talking about logos, but that's certainly part of the story.

You know, they were all about, they literally their logo was a mouth with braces. So, and the colors, by the way, were pink and gray.

I don't know who told them this was a good idea, but and we went from that to creating the tagline the smile specialist.

Because ultimately your goal is to have a perfect smile period. And so we did a whole we had a whole wall of smiles.

And it was again, it's focusing on the outcome. Nobody wants to see the process of you getting a smile.

That's perfect. Right. wants. We know it's going to hurt. But why are we focusing on the pain? want to focus on, you know, this happy outcome.

And so they ended up, we actually hired a photographer. We had a whole wall of smiles from their patients.

In fact, I don't think you can see it behind me is actually one of those smiles. But, you know, that's such a, I think that's such a good example because When we're really close, and this is the other piece, we're so close to our own story.

We're focused on the process because that is what we do day. in and out. But when you're talking to a potential prospect client, what have you, customer, right?

They want to know what's going to happen. So what's on the other side of this? They assume you know your process.

You don't have to, right? I find a lot of times, especially when I work with founders, you know, they're so excited about their unique process of what they're bringing their intellectual property that they forget that that is not the first point of entry, right?

You have to understand that stories, you know, there's a beginning, middle, end, right? And so the beginning is, I want you to read the book, which is why every book doesn't start in the middle of chapter five, right?

There's a cover page, there's table of contents, there's a copyright page, there's, right? there's a reason for that. And so from a storytelling perspective, you need to,

to figure out again understanding that pain point understanding where that person starts from helps you know where to begin your story.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I love the example and I could speak to that recently right regarding teeth. My son had to get some dental work done and guess what?

My wife and I hated the process. We hated having to fight with them to go to the dentist. We hate it trying to explain them at nauseam the importance and and all the different things that went into it.

And if that dentist was really sharing the process, no one's going to want to buy that because no one no one thoroughly enjoys going getting dinner work done.

But guess what? The outcome she focused on healthy smiles and I want my son and I want all my kids to have a healthy smile.

I don't want them to have cavities right. want I want healthy dental care. That's a great outcome. So I appreciate that example.

Now I know it sounds simplistic but there are people listening that they if they really truly processed it. They are focusing on different processes versus outcomes.

So what do you recommend people do to kind of stop them in their tracks regarding stories they might be sharing?

might have a lot of passion regarding certain process stories. would you recommend them focus on shifting from that process to that outcome?

 

Orly Zeewy

So one of the exercises that I do is I ask people to list five words that come to mind when they think about their practice.

And one of the ways to get those answers is you go back to your clients and find out what do they say, do some kind of exit poll or even do an online survey, like three questions.

Least three words that, three things that happen is a result of working with us. Or just to kind of get a little bit, if you don't have it, that also moves you away from what's important to you to what's important to your clients.

 

Matt Zaun 

really like that. I really like that. So they have the five questions or not five questions five words So the five words once they have those five words Are they building stories based on those five words?

 

Orly Zeewy

Is that? What do is after we have the five words we get on we I do this whole virtually and we get on on on zoom and we literally Build kind of almost a brain dump for each word and we get it down to three And eventually you'll get it down to one and the one word the one thing that is your core value That's the core value to build the story brands around yeah the thing that you want to work from so You know, it took me.

mean just to let you know it took me a long time to get to I make fuzzy clear right because and I it was because I kept hearing that from my clients that this is what I really Helped them do like I honestly

That's why I call myself a facilitator of light bulb moments, right? Because ultimately what people want is clarity. And you can talk about all the ways, you know, I can talk about all the ways you get there.

You again, back to the process. But I think what people tend to do is they're so, they're so close to it.

And I think this is part of why it's so hard to do this yourself. You're so close to it.

That's why you need perspective. So I think reaching out to your happy clients, right? Even doing some kind of an exit poll at the end of each project, know, getting just getting them to write up a recommendation on LinkedIn.

Help this is part of what's helped me understand. Like I keep hearing the same thing over and over again.

This must be important. So it also gets me out of, because, you know, I, like everyone else was doing exactly the same thing, focusing on the process.

This is what I'm going to do. And this is what's going to we just want. something that's gonna like because ultimately what you want is for you know for when you when people are thinking of a certain thing that's associated with your brand they want it they want you want them to be thinking of you as the solution.

 

Matt Zaun 

Really good point you know it's amazing I'm thinking about all this in my and my head you mentioned the five words and the five words that came out immediately persuasion leadership sales marketing and influence.

Now what's interesting is in the last few years the number one thing that is a reoccurring theme if I was to boil it down to one word is influence that word comes up all the time with my clients they want to have an influence when it comes to their leadership team their employees their board depending on if they have boards they want influence.

So are you suggesting that I would take that word and I'd build out a lot of different stories and messages around that word.

 

Orly Zeewy

Yes absolutely absolutely and you know this is why it's important to get feedback from your clients to get when you get testimonials.

It's not just, hey, you did a great job. It's like, this is how you help me become an influencer.

And in fact, once you have that word, when you ask for the recommendation, you can say, how did I help you become an influencer?

 

Matt Zaun 

That's great. It's amazing how many people don't do that.

 

Orly Zeewy

They really don't or they don't do it soon enough. Like, you know, I always tell people that, you know, you've got a window of about a week.

When people are happy, you've just, hopefully, they're happy. You've just finished a project. That's the time to ask for it.

And people are very happy to give you feedback when they're happy with what you did. But again, also understanding your space, your lane, your zone of genius helps you to, you're not crafting the stories, but you're helping guide people.

other, you know, it's hard for people to just write a bunch of stuff. It helps them when you say, look,

I'm looking for feedback on these three things. For me, it's clarity, messaging, cutting through the noise, all those kinds of things.

It's amazing when you get back exactly that. all of a sudden, you can look back and you say, have a dozen different recommendations based on the thing that you do.

 

Matt Zaun 

Incredible points. Thank you so much. I very much appreciate your time today. I appreciate this conversation. There's three takeaways that I'm going to take away from our discussion today.

I appreciate you mentioning the who am I, who needs it. That's the ideal client. It's really important that we really have that as a starting point.

The second point was when you said empathy map, what is the thing that's keeping them up at night and how do you solve that pain point?

That's something that people I think need to continue to go back to. Even if they think they have the pain point down, they need to continue to go back to it because sometimes...

There's day-to-day changes when it comes to our clients. And the third piece is that process or outcome story. I think a lot of times people focus on the process and not the outcome.

So those are my three takeaways. I know others listening might have gotten other takeaways. Now, if someone wants to get more information on what you do, they want to reach out to you.

Where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

Orly Zeewy

So I'm only on the one platform, which is LinkedIn. And there's only one Orly Zee-Wee, as far as I know.

So just LinkedIn, Orly Zee-Wee, one word. And Zee-Wee Brands, which is my website. then you can go on Amazon and find my book, Ready Launch Brand, The Lean Marketing Guide for Startups.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. I'll include all that in the show notes. We'll get you to the screen.

 

Orly Zeewy

Matt, was a pleasure.